Paintings and sketches - mostly of landscapes and nature. Many are from the beautiful Pacific Northwest, and frequently reflect a primary interest - serious birding.

January 19, 2009

Root Cellar - Okanogan Country

This image was painted using soft pastels. The image is of a root cellar found on a recent birding trip to the Okanogan highlands and Waterville Plateau areas of Washington state - an area which has good winter species of birds for this area of the country. There was about eight inches of fresh snow overnight and the scene was well lit with low angle winter sunlight. I liked this image well enough to post it, but it has problems. I believe there should be more color in the snow shadow areas, although when painting it I tried not to put too much color in the snow, as there wasn't that much in the actual scene itself. However, with the dark wood and stones in the root cellar, the white snow is really too much contrast with the dark mass in the center. Done on 9x12" Canson watercolor paper with NuPastel, Rembrandt and Unison soft pastels.